Betfair s Free Sport Betting Business Model

I've been using Betfair for years now however it is only recently I've wondered just how much does this company can certainly make? This question is exactly what has compelled me to write down this informative article. I will not receive copies of their accounts from companies house, the content will be all conjecture determined by what I've found while using the web page through the years.

What has allowed me to ponder this question is the transparency in the Betfair site. If you consider traditional bookies like WilliamHill, Ladbrokes or Betfred, what you do not know on any particular sporting event 's what continues to be bet as a whole and on what particular outcome these bets were placed.

Take a regular Friday afternoon race meeting at say Ascot. It's the 2.30 and 5 horses are racing; the punters are logging to among the traditional bookmakers websites and sbobet backing various horses. The outcome is the second favourite winning, we've not a clue whether individuals were backing the outsider or favourite, how much was bet, and what kind of profit the bookmaker made.

Now think about the same race with Betfair. The total amount exchanged for your race is given at the top of the page, this can be typically about A�200,000 for any standard horse race. Now we understand that Betfair require a commission on all winnings, as well as for every bet exchanged you will find there's winner, so they're taking their 5% no matter the result - about A�10,000 in cases like this.

So now for a quick amount of 'back of fag packet' maths. Approximately 40 races per day generating A�10,000 each are A�400,000 a day one week a week, that's 2.8 million pounds a week. Throw in the bigger meetings knowning that rounds it up to say 3 million, 5% that is A�150,000.

Now take into account the Premiership football season. At least 12 games per week generating between A�200,000 plus a million pounds in exchanged bets, make average and exercise the 5% commission understanding that's another A�350,000. On top of this there's the lower league and foreign games that has got to generate another A�100,000 in commission so we're up to Half millions of pounds weekly in revenue.

Bear planned that you could (and individuals do) bet on everything, golf, cricket, tennis, boxing, champions league football, International soccer, let alone gaming. I'm needs to arrive at concluding that they must be getting weekly revenue inside millions, of course, if it's only A�3 million per week, that's over 150 million annually.

I admit to presenting not a clue if my workings are drastically wrong here, and if Betfair actually has annual revenue of A�1million or A�1billion. Neither do I have a perception of what their attorney's fees, IT costs etc amount to. What I do see is always that unlike traditional bookmakers the results associated with a sporting event does not have any bearing on their revenue.

To this end their main aim is always to just recruit numerous customers as possible, which poses the question; with the numerous online bookies around offering free introductory bets up to as well as in overabundance A�100, then so why do Betfair just offer A�30. That may be the topic of my next article.